1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electrode material for an anode of a rechargeable lithium battery in which oxidation-reduction reaction of lithium is used (this battery will be hereinafter referred to as rechargeable lithium battery for simplification purpose), an electrode structural body using said electrode material, a rechargeable lithium battery having an anode comprising said electrode structural body, a process for producing said electrode structural body, and a process for producing said rechargeable lithium battery. More particularly, the present invention relates to an electrode structural body for a rechargeable lithium battery, which is constituted by an electrode material comprising a specific amorphous alloy and which provides a high capacity and a prolonged cycle life for said battery and to a rechargeable lithium battery having an anode comprising said electrode structural body. The present invention includes a process for producing said electrode structural body and a process for producing said rechargeable lithium battery.
2. Prior Art
In recent years, the global warming of the earth because of the so-called greenhouse effect to an increase in the content of CO2 gas in the air has been predicted. For instance, in thermal electric power plants, thermal energy obtained by burning a fossil fuel is being converted into electric energy, and along with burning of such fossil fuel, a large amount of CO2 gas is being exhausted in the air. Accordingly, in order to suppress this situation, there is a tendency of prohibiting to newly establish a thermal electric power plant. Under these circumstances, so-called load leveling practice has been proposed in order to effectively utilize electric powers generated by power generators in thermal electric power plants or the like, wherein a surplus power unused in the night is stored in rechargeable batteries installed at general houses and the power thus stored is used in the daytime when the demand for power is increased, whereby the power consumption is leveled.
Now, for electric vehicles which do not exhaust any air polluting substances such as CO2, NOx, hydrocarbons and the like, there is an increased demand for developing a high performance rechargeable battery with a high energy density which can be effectively used therein. Besides, there is also an increased demand for developing a miniature, lightweight, high performance rechargeable battery usable as a power source for portable instruments such as small personal computers, word processors, video cameras, and cellular phones.
As such miniature, lightweight and high performance rechargeable battery, there has been proposed various rocking chair type lithium ion batteries in which a carbonous material such as graphite capable of intercalating lithium ion at intercalation sites of its six-membered network plane provided by carbon atoms in the battery reaction upon charging is used as an anode material and a lithium intercalation compound capable of deintercalating said lithium ion from the intercalation in the battery reaction upon charging is used as a cathode material. Some of these lithium ion batteries have been practically used. However, for any of these lithium ion batteries whose anode comprising the carbonous material (the graphite), the theoretical amount of lithium which can be intercalated by the anode is only an amount of ⅙ per carbon atom. Because of this, in such lithium ion battery, when the amount of lithium intercalated by the anode comprising the carbonous material (the graphite) is made greater than the theoretical amount upon performing charging-operation or when charging operation is performed under condition of high electric current density, there will be an unavoidable problem such that lithium is deposited in a dendritic state (that is, in the form of a dendrite) on the surface of the anode. This will result in causing internal-shorts between the anode and the cathode upon repeating the charging and discharging cycle. Therefore, it is difficult for the lithium ion battery whose anode comprising the carbonous material (the graphite) to achieve a sufficient charging and discharging cycle life. In addition, using this battery design, it is extremely difficult to attain a desirable rechargeable battery having a high energy density comparable to that of a primary lithium battery in which a metallic lithium is used as the anode active material.
Now, rechargeable lithium batteries in which a metallic lithium is used as the anode have been proposed and they have attracted public attention in a viewpoint that they exhibit a high energy density. However, such rechargeable battery is not practically usable one because its charging and discharging cycle life is extremely short. A main reason why the charging and discharging cycle life is extremely short has been generally considered as will be described in the following. The metallic lithium as the anode reacts with impurities such as moisture or an organic solvent contained in an electrolyte solution to form an insulating film or/and the metallic lithium as the anode has an irregular surface with portions to which electric field is converged, and these factors lead to generating a dendrite of lithium upon repeating the charging and discharging cycle, resulting in internal-shorts between the anode and cathode. As a result, the charging and discharging cycle life of the rechargeable battery is extremely shortened.
When the lithium dendrite is grown to make the anode and cathode such that the anode is internally shorted with the cathode as above described, the energy possessed by the battery is rapidly consumed at the internally shorted portion. This situation often creates problems in that the battery is heated or the solvent of the electrolyte is decomposed by virtue of heat to generate gas, resulting in an increase in the inner pressure of the battery. Thus, the growth of the lithium dendrite tends to cause internal-shorts between the anode and the cathode whereby occurring such problems as above described, where the battery is damaged or/and the lifetime of the battery is shortened.
In order to eliminate the above problems for such rechargeable battery in which the metallic lithium is used as the anode, specifically, in order to suppress the progress of the reaction between the metallic lithium of the anode and the moisture or the organic solvent contained in the electrolyte solution, there has been proposed a method of using a lithium alloy such as a lithium-aluminum alloy as the anode. However, this method is not widely applicable in practice for the following reasons. The lithium alloy is hard and is difficult to wind into a spiral form and therefore, it is difficult to produce a spiral-wound cylindrical rechargeable battery. Accordingly, it is difficult to attain a rechargeable battery having a sufficiently long charging and discharging cycle life. It is also difficult to attain a rechargeable battery having a desirable energy density similar to that of a primary battery in which a metallic lithium is used as the anode.
Japanese Unexamined Patent Publications Nos. 64239/1996, 62464/1991, 12768/1990, 113366/1987, 15761/1987, 93866/1987, and 78434/1979 disclose various metals, i.e., Al, Cd, In, Sn, Sb, Pb, and Bi which are capable of forming an alloy with lithium in a rechargeable battery when the battery is subjected to charging, and rechargeable batteries in which these metals, alloys of these metals, or alloys of these metals with lithium are used as the anodes. However, the above-mentioned publications do not detail about the configurations of the anodes.
By the way, when any of the foregoing alloy materials is fabricated into a plate-like form such as a foil form which is generally adopted as an electrode of a rechargeable battery and it is used as an anode of a rechargeable battery in which lithium is used as the anode active material, the specific surface area of a portion in the anode's electrode material layer contributing to the battery reaction is relatively small and therefore, the charging and discharging cycle is difficult to be effectively repeated with a large electric current.
Further, for a rechargeable battery in which any of the foregoing alloy materials is used for the anode, there are such problems as will be described in the following. The anode is expanded with respect to the volume because of alloying with lithium upon charging and shrunk upon discharging, where the anode suffers from repetitive variations with respect to the volume. Because of this, the anode has a tendency that it is eventually distorted and cracked. In the case where the anode becomes to be in such state, when the charging and discharging cycle is repeated over a long period of time, in the worst case, the anode is converted into a pulverized state to have an increased impedance, resulting in shortening the charging and discharging cycle life. Hence, none of the rechargeable batteries disclosed in the above-mentioned Japanese publications has been put to practical use.
In Extended Abstracts WED-2 (pages 69–72) of 8th INTERNATIONAL MEETING ON LITHIUM BATTERIES (hereinafter referred to as document), there is described that by electrochemically depositing a Sn or a Sn-alloy on a copper wire having a diameter of 0.07 mm as a collector, an electrode having a deposited layer comprising a grained tin material with a small particle size of 200 to 400 nm can be formed, and a cell in which the electrode having such deposited layer with a thin thickness of about 3 μm and a counter electrode comprising a lithium metal are used has an improved charging and discharging cycle life. The above document also describes that in the evaluation wherein a cycle of operating charging up to 1.7 Li/Sn (one atom of Sn is alloyed with 1.7 atoms of Li) at a current density of 0.25 mA/cm2 and operating discharging up to 0.9 V vs Li/Li+ is repeated, an electrode comprising a fine-grained Sn material with a particle size of 200 to 400 nm, an electrode comprising a Sn0.91Ag0.09 alloy and an electrode comprising a Sn0.72Sb0.28 alloy were greater than an electrode comprising a coarse-grained Sn alloy material with a particle size of 2000 to 4000 nm deposited on a collector comprising a copper wire having a diameter of 1.0 mm obtained in the same manner as in the above, in terms of the charging and discharging cycle life, respectively by about 4 times, about 9 times, and about 11 times. However, the evaluated results described in the above document are of the case where the lithium metal was used as the counter electrode and therefore, they are not evaluated results obtained in practical battery configurations. In addition, the foregoing electrodes are those prepared by depositing such grained material as above described on the collector comprising a copper wire having a diameter of 0.07 and therefore, any of them is not of a practically usable electrode form. Further in addition, according to the description of the above-mentioned document, in the case where a Sn alloy is deposited on a large area having a diameter of 1.0 mm for example, it is understood that there is afforded an electrode having a layer comprising a coarse-grained tin alloy material with a particle size of 2000 to 4000 nm. However, for this electrode, the lifetime as a battery will be extremely shortened.
Japanese Unexamined Patent Publications Nos. 190171/1993, 47381/1993, 114057/1988, and 13264/1988 disclose rechargeable lithium batteries in which various lithium alloys are used as the anodes. In these publications, there are described that these rechargeable lithium batteries prevent deposition of lithium dendrite and have an improved charging efficiency and an improved charging and discharging cycle life. Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 234585/1993 discloses a rechargeable lithium battery having an anode comprising a metal powder, which is difficult to form an intermetallic compound with lithium, is uniformly bonded on the surface of a lithium metal. In this publication, it is described that this rechargeable lithium battery prevents deposition of lithium dendrite and has an improved charging efficiency and an improved charging and discharging cycle life.
However, any of the anodes described in the above-mentioned publications is not decisive one which can markedly prolong the charging and discharging cycle life of the rechargeable lithium battery.
Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 13267/1988 discloses a rechargeable lithium battery in which a lithium alloy obtained by electrochemically alloying an amorphous metal comprising a plate-like aluminum alloy as a main example with lithium is used as the anode. This publication describes that this rechargeable lithium battery excels in charge-discharge characteristics. However, according to the technique described in this publication, it is difficult to realize a practically usable rechargeable lithium battery having a high capacity and a charging and discharging cycle life which falls in a practically usable region.
Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 223221/1998 discloses a rechargeable lithium battery in which a low crystalline or amorphous intermetallic compound of an element selected from a group consisting of Al, Ge, Pb, Si, Sn, and Zn is used as the anode. This publication describes that this rechargeable lithium battery has a high capacity and excels in cycle characteristics. However, it is extremely difficult to industrially produce such low crystalline or amorphous intermetallic compound in practice. According to the technique described in this publication, it is difficult to realize a practically usable rechargeable lithium battery having a high capacity and a prolonged charging and discharging cycle life.
As above described, for the conventional rechargeable lithium batteries in which oxidation-reduction reaction of lithium is used, enlargement of their energy density and prolongation of their charging and discharging cycle life are massive subjects to be solved.